AWOL
by Nomannic
Summary: In a small military camp on the outskirts of Kyoto, Japan, Sasuke Uchiha has gone AWOL, deserting his fellow soldiers. To what lengths will his ex-comrades go too to save him? M for violence, cursing and possible sex scenes later on. NOT a romance. ON HIATUS.
1. Chapter 1

**AWOL**

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

Rain crawled down his face, the icy water etching a pattern into his hot, porcelain skin. His eyes were hooded, his lashes sticking together as drops gathered on them like the bristles of a broom left out in a storm. Soft, cold locks of hair framed hardened, pained features. The obsidian rats' nest atop his head was matted down with water weight and clung to his face, neck, back and shoulders like a desperate kitten, begging for attention. Dark black eyes stared down before him.

She lay on the Romanesque stone park bench, eyes closed in what looked like a peaceful sleep. Her flawless face was slack, her cherry-red hair falling in thick, short waves over and around her face and the gaps in the stone of the bench,. Her clothes, drenched, clung to her like a second skin, chilling her unconscious body.

He leaned down and brushed a strand of her hair out of her face, not out of an act of tenderness, but merely one of respect for the woman.

And apology.

With one last lingering gaze over her, he vanished.

**A/N:** This is the first chapter of an AU Naruto story. There will be very few OC characters, and the ones that are, will be minor and scarce. This story will center around a platonic/brotherly NaruSasu relationship, and probably be a SasuSaku. Don't like, fuck off.

(This story is an apology to all my readers of my other stories, I am sorry I havne't updated in a while, and I will try better.)


	2. Chapter 2

**AWOL**

Tsunade, governor of Konoha Military Base, was a woman who knew how to age gracefully… and violently. She was a tall woman with long, vibrant hair that had not a sign of her old age in its golden-yellow sheen. Her eyes were bright and fiery, expressing her almost-constant state of obsessive compulsion, rage, drunkenness, and also how surprisingly and unbelievably kind this woman could be when she wished it, no matter how uncommon these instances were. Her chest bulged from her shirt, and most of her subordinates both feared and wished for the day it would fall out of her shirt.

All in all she was a powerful, beautiful woman who took particular joy in throwing furniture at people.

Right now, though, she lay at her desk, fast asleep on her paperwork and drooling on yet another report from the Lieutenant General up in Central about how he was debating about whether or not to challenge the new leash laws.

Suddenly, Izumo and Kotetsu, two average soldiers who acted as her lackeys (she liked to call them minions, but they preferred servants), knocked very loudly on the door, then without waiting for a response, walked right into the corner office which admittedly had a spectacular birds-eye view of the entire military base.

Tsunade sat up drearily with bloodshot eyes, ruffled hair, and a bursting shirt. She gave off a glare, which had been known to kill, while her lackeys silently pondered how even with a hangover, they still wanted to pounce their boss in ravaging hormones like teenage carnivorous boys.

"Well?" Tsunade grumbled, breaking their particularly disturbing trains of thought and bringing their gaze back above her shoulders, only to fall again. She scowled at them lightly. Men.

"We have an AWOL soldier," Izumo stated bluntly, deciding she'd get all pissy again if he made a comment about how she spent her work hours in comparison to how she made him spend his, which was usually making up and covering up for her.

Tsunade gave them a blank, confused look.

"We… What?" She asked, rubbing her temples in an attempt to chase away the raging war drums pounding off in her head that were an after-affect of her poor decisions the previous night.

"Sasuke Uchiha has left the base unauthorized while in active duty," Kotetsu elaborated, feeling a common sense of impatience with his boss. Right now was not the time for her to have a hangover.

"Why?" She asked stupidly, trying to come to grips with the surprising and headache-feeding situation. God, she needed some Tylenol.

"Sakura Haruno has stated that it is to join a man called Orochimaru, another AWOL soldier and current crime boss in Sound City," Kotetsu continued.

Tsunade was quiet for another moment as she let her brain process everything and clear away some of the fog the alcohol had left in its midst.

When their words finally registered, her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, her jaw dropped ten stories and the pencil in her hand snapped clear in half.

"Shit!" She cried, jumping to her feet.

"Yeah, shit," the two soldiers agreed simultaneously. Izumo handed her the case file, or at least what they had now.

"Sasuke Uchiha, one of the two only-living beings of the Uchiha clan, a clan renown for being the dominant family of the Police Force in this district, until AWOL S.W.A.T. member Itachi Uchiha killed all of them off, except Sasuke, his younger brother." Izumo started his normal pre-job briefing, what he had always done before Lady Tsunade arranged and gathered a task a force for a job.

She flapped her hand over at him as she glanced over the case file. "Yes, yes, I all ready know that story. What about him though? What's he been doing since then?"

"Sasuke Uchiha joined the COMP, the Children's Orphan Military Program. He advanced at a regular speed, but always was at the top of everything her did, except the required team-training. He then graduated and joined through our scholarship program, and became the third member of Pod Captain Kakashi Hatake's pod, pod #7, and began the normal training period. One year later, Pod 7 submitted to the Active Soldier Exams during which he sustained heavy damaging and was poisoned."

"Poisoned?" Tsunade stopped short, abruptly stopping the pacing she wasn't quite sure she had started. She looked up at Kotetsu, wondering if she had heard Izumo wrong.

"Affirmative," Izumo said, nodding.

"What kind? How?"

"We weren't given the appropriate amount of time to-"

"Bullshit," Tsunade said, cutting Izumo off. She knew very well just how powerful the army was. They would have kept him for fifteen years in Hawaii to research how he liked his sushi if they had wanted too. Screw the law and all of the classifications, she needed to hear the truth to handle this case.

Izumo sighed. "It didn't danger his health, so the doctors deemed it unimportant. He received the poison through a human bitemark on his left shoulder."

"From who?"

"Lab tests pegged it on Orochimaru."

"Great. We're actually authorized to get involved in this?" Her lackeys nodded in confirmation, their chins dipping towards their chests. Tsunade groaned, placing her head in her hands and slumping back into her desk chair. She set the case file in front of her, not caring if papers escaped the manila folder.

"Fine. So what do we know? What happened?"

"The initial report was from your student Sakura Haruno. She stated that she had tried to stop him, but he left anyways and knocked her out. She also said that the Uchiha had said Orochimaru would give him the power he need for revenge."

"Shit. Where is she now?"

"She's in the Hospital. Floor 1 in short-term recovery, room 13. She's got a light case of pneumonia."

"Thank you. Now what's the classification on this?"

"Confidential."

"Fine. Get me Kakashi, Naruto, and Shikamaru. Dismissed." As soon as Izumo and Kotetsu had both bowed and left, Tsunade grabbed her coat and bag and raced down to the hospital she had once been in charge of.


End file.
